Re: Can someone provide a sensible plan for GNOME in Debian, please? [Was: Bug#158165]
<quote who="Marcelo E. Magallon">
> > - should not require piecemeal installation of GNOME 2.x Desktop
> > components such as Sawfish and gnome-terminal (they will not
> > interoperate correctly - the G2D components are an all-or-nothing
> > upgrade)
>
> What does "G2D components" mean in this context and why is it an
> all-or-nothing upgrade. On the archives of debian-ctte I saw Ian
> asking this very question but last time I checked there wasn't an
> answer.
Okay, GNOME has separate releases:
Developer Platform (libraries with API/ABI consistency)
Desktop
Fifth Toe
Hacker Tools
Office
The G2D components are the ones released with the recent 2.0 Desktop
release, you can see the list here:
http://developer.gnome.org/dotplan/modules/
When it comes to installing the GNOME 2.0 Desktop, you can't just install,
for example, gnome-terminal, because it doesn't interoperate well with the
1.4 desktop. That's 100% upstream's fault. :-) Basically, you need to
install the GNOME 2.0 Desktop completely, or not at all.
> > - must not involve removal of basic GTK+/GNOME libraries, or gnomecc,
> > as GTK+/GNOME 1.x software relies on these
>
> AFAIUI, noone has considered removing libraries. The way I read
> Raphael's jest, he meant removing applications -- which for some reason
> or another people seem to be fondly attached to.
I hope so - because various applications (stuff in Fifth Toe and Office, or
other stuff outside of GNOME's releases) haven't been ported, such as
Evolution, Abiword, etc. Also, for a sensible migration strategy, you can't
simply 'drop' the 1.x desktop.
> > - suggested that libgconf1 is patched to launch gconfd-2 (as in Red
> > Hat), and all GNOME 1.x packages change dependencies to gconf2,
> > whilst keeping library dependency the same... this should definitely
> > be done for sarge (this means that there will be no interoperability
> > issues between 1.x and 2.x desktop components and applications wrt
> > gconfd)
>
> Hmm... something smells fishy there. If libgconf1 can work without
> trouble with gconfd-2, why does gconfd-2 exist at all? I mean, why
> isn't it just an upgrade for gconfd (in the "take one binary, replace
> it with another, keep the name" sense)?
That's a good question for Havoc. ;-) Basically, libgconf1 can talk to
gconfd-2 happily, as long as /etc/gconf/ stuff is set up correctly, so for
good interoperability between G1 apps (Galeon especially) and the G2
desktop, the above strategy is really worthwhile.
> > Despite Christian's criticisms, I'm not here to troll. I'm here to
> > help you guys make Debian's GNOME as good as it can be. If you need
> > information from upstream, or help with issues during the migration,
> > I'm right here.
>
> Thank you.
Thanks, hope I can be helpful,
- Jeff
--
"There, I did it... I defiled a timeless piece of ART!" - Jim Carrey,
covering I Am The Walrus
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